


The Orphans of Mah

by Laetitia_Laetitii



Category: Runescape
Genre: Gen, Mahjarrat, freneskae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:25:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laetitia_Laetitii/pseuds/Laetitia_Laetitii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Much as I like having Seren back, I do miss the stories her disembodied form used to tell.<br/>This was inspired by those stories and her memoriam crystals. Written in December 2014, it was one of the first fics I uploaded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Orphans of Mah

At the end Guthix gave me two choices: leave and leave my elves, or die. I chose the latter, or as close as I could get. I shattered my being, denying myself a physical form and power. Though the elves have no way of knowing it, my full consciousness remained and has since lingered here in the Tower of Voices. 

I have had a long time to consider my crimes against them. I have had a long time to evaluate my selfish motives for it and to be ashamed. But deep underneath, even more hideous, remains the guilt and the horror for another, initial crime. Its ramifications were greater than those of the later one, for it involved beings of far greater power, who yet at the time were utterly at my mercy.

Let me recall my sin.

By then my brother was long gone and Mah would hardly wake from her slumber. They arrived as I had once again soothed her to sleep from yet another bout of flailing about and crying and screaming for my brother. Later I came to think of them as the tribes. They were so cold, the poor things, so frightened and lost. They stood at the edge of the crater, full of awe and expectation. She had dreamed them up in her sleep, out of longing for my brother and disappointment in me. But her powers had waned, her strength had run out. Thus they were stunted and frail compared to her firstborns, yet the combined powers of darkness and light mixed, not separated, gave them a potential for power their unimmortal bodies could hardly contain.

They knew who had created them and now wanted her to teach them how to live. Instead, they found me. I knew what they were. I knew where they had come from. Yet I could not think of them as living beings, desperately in need of my guidance and protection. They were things. Their presence disturbed Mah. They were one more sorrow I was supposed to spend my waning strength on. 

Wishing to keep them from further bothering Mah, I appeared to them in disguise and introduced myself as their creator. How full of wonder they were, the poor, unfortunate creatures. So I taught them what little I thought they would need to protect themselves from the elements. I taught them to build shelters and to weave their own power into clothes. I taught them about red and dark fire, and how to steer the winds about them. Whatever I taught, I taught reluctantly, begrudging them their need and their helplessness. But as I instructed them, it came increasingly clear to me how full they were of raw power. How I could make some use of them after all. Finally, I settled on a method. This is what I told them:

“Now I shall teach you how to fend off the muspah and to soothe the tremors that shake the earths. Perform the Rituals as I set them, and none need be rendered by the beasts and none shall be swallowed by the breaking ground. Go down the mountainside and there you will find a stone fashioned in my image. This is the Ritual Marker, the site for your sacred rites. When the grounds tremble, divide into pairs, a male and a female in each. From their energies and from the energies of Mother Mah, create another one of your kind and the grounds will settle. This is the Ritual of Enervation. When the terrible muspah rise from the ground, choose one of your tribe and place him upon the Marker. Slay him there, and his fleeing life’s force shall slay the beasts. This is the Ritual of Rejuvenation.

They thanked me. They praised my wisdom.

They had no way of knowing me from Mah. Consequently, how could they have known that the rituals were designed to regulate the flow of anima about the Cradle; to draw from it when Mah dreamed her nightmares, to add to it when she stirred?

It was not much later that she dreamed once more and the muspah appeared from the ground. Out of curiosity, I stole unseen to check if the tribe would observe my Rituals. I found them gathered about the Marker and engaged in heated argument. When they had first come to me, they had all stood together as one group. Now they had separated into smaller ones, huddled together, each trying to protect those they cared for the most. The muspah were coming and they were trying to decide who to sacrifice. 

One said: “Let us kill a weakling who cannot fight for his people!” Another said: “Let us kill a sickly one who needs constant care!” A third argued: “Let it be one of the doubters who resist the rituals!” And so on they disputed, until one, mad with fear, made a grab for another. But the intended victim was frightened beyond his wits himself, and panicking, he hurled a volley of dark fire at his brother. There was a flash and the aggressor was prone on the ground, writhing in pain and wailing pitifully. Without wasting a second, the others grabbed him and hoisted him, still screaming, upon the stone. I saw another flash, and the crying stopped. When the volcanic ash began to settle again, the tribe was still there, but something had changed. Before, they had stood in groups for protection, but now they all seemed to stand apart, fearful of each other. They were all guilty of the murder of one of their own and they knew it. Instead of fighting all together against the muspah, they had attacked a kinsman and sacrificed him to save their lives. I had made them ugly and horrifying in their own eyes, guilty and unworthy.

At the time I could not have cared less, for Mother Mah slept her sound, dreamless sleep again. My plan had worked.

So time passed, and the incident repeated. Gradually the tribe split into smaller groups of co-conspirators, who all fought one another for stable sites near the Ritual Stone and other resources. Inside these groups, they would fight and plot to determine the weakest, gradually abolishing all feelings of trust and affection. Blood relatives would often be allies, but it was not unthinkable to see a son send his mother, or a sister her brother, to the Marker.

Likewise, the Ritual of Enervation became an occasion for aggression. The males would fight for a chance at the females, then fight the females for a chance at the one they preferred, for none trusted another. After the Ritual the two parted and the mother reared the child –itself a future threat to her –alone. They formed no pairs, as instead of a comfort, a companion would have been a liability.

And yet when they came up the volcano I had seen them stand so close to another, and had sometimes glimpsed two trying to shelter each other, trying to find a little solace, perchance to discover what their natures were trying to tell them.

I took all that away from them.

By the time I left there were three tribes, each at war with the other. Inside the tribes, each thing was at war with its brothers.

I found my way to Tarddiad and found my elves. They were mine at once, my beloved children. Later…much later, no, do not let me recall what happened in between –NO! Make it go away!…Forgive me, forgive me...I didn't know...I didn't know. Later. I wound up on Gielinor, the last and the most perfect of the worlds. I chose my elves a home upon the Western shores: wood-clad Tirannwn, at the edge of the world. The mountains cut us off from all the rest. No harm could come there.  
But news reached my ears, news of a great empire to the East. Of the god who was its emperor and the tribe of immortals who served under him. Somehow, they had found each other. He had taken them in and used them for the only thing they were good for. In his own way, he gave them a home.

It is more than I ever did for them, and at least in respect to the Dreams of Mah, I am no better than my brother.

Below, on the Tower floor, my shattered shards scream. For Mah, for Guthix, for my poor elves. But my oldest crime is buried deep and floats with my disembodied consciousness in the ether.

And may the ether forever keep it.

**Author's Note:**

> In the first version I gave the number of tribes as twelve, which would have dwindled down to three between her departure and the arrival of Icthlarin.


End file.
